


Tin Box

by Kaiseilin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiseilin/pseuds/Kaiseilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had been dreading the day Sherlock met his sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tin Box

John knows the second he hears the main door of the flat open that there will be trouble soon in 221B. He knows because the jostling of a bag, the heavy footing and the obnoxiously strong voice saying hello to Mrs Hudson downstairs, belong to his sister. He'd recognise (and hear) her coming a mile away.

 

Except she's only a set of stairs away and getting nearer with every laboured stomp up towards their door.

 

John had been wondering when they'd get this visit and been dreading it. At least she had the decency to let things get back together before she came. She _had_ warned him.

 

Now she's standing there at their door, hair fiery ginger and face full of determination.

 

“Hello Johnny.” She greets him.

 

“Hi Harry.” He replies and waits.

 

Sherlock had stood some moments ago as she was walking up the stairs and now looks upon her with eyes that John knows are picking apart every inch of her dress, mannerisms and features that make up her life and personality. Harriet and Sherlock had never met so far and John can only imagine what theories he's picking out of her now, no doubt solving a few whimsical thoughts about Johns childhood he'd been querying over for years.

 

Harriet turns to him with a look of barely contained fury on her face and John sighs quietly to himself. There was a reason he'd never let them meet and that reason only got stronger after Sherlock's 'suicide' and eventual return.

 

It had been some time since then and Harry, as promised, was here to give her opinion.

 

“Doing okay, Johnny?” She asks, gaze still locked with Sherlock's. They seemed to be having some fierce mental battle of wills entirely via look. It was quite odd to observe, he felt like he was missing out on parts of a conversation.

 

“Fine. Harry, I've been doing fine.”

 

“Hm.” She hums. “And _you_.” This time she is actually talking directly to Sherlock, who's eyebrows raise a little in that arrogance of his.

 

“I'm-” He tries.

 

“I know full well who you bloody are, _Sherlock Holmes_.” She says his name like a bad disease and the detective frowns. John rubs his temples and tries not to intervene, he'd decide that when this happened, it would be easier to just _let_ it happen.

 

He flinches, startled but not surprised when Harriet walks a few steps and slaps Sherlock hard across the face.

 

Sherlock takes the slap, looking outraged, amused and intrigued by the slaps many meanings all at once as only he could be. He rounds his face back to front and centre, stretching the pivot of his neck a little before he and Harriet are having a stare off again.

 

John notices Harry's hands are shaking but he can't tell if its the drink or pure anger.

 

“ _Don't_ tell me who you are. _Don't_ tell me who _I_ am, how much I've drunk, where I work, who I live with or anything else about me or anyone else’s life. Do you understand?” She starts. “You have single handedly _destroyed_ my brother's life. You fucked off and left him like the rest of us. Except _you_ _aren't_ the rest of us.” At the word 'you' she stalks forward and jabs him hard in the chest twice with her index finger. He looks down at the appendage incredulously but says nothing, Harry is a charging beast on the run and she would stop for nobody right now. “ _You_ are Sherlock Holmes. _You_ are the one person on this bloody planet that John decides he can trust, and you know what? For a while I was really noticing a fucking change in our John.” She nods. “For once in his life he was _actually_ happy. You gave him a home and a purpose and a friendship but you just couldn't let that last could you? You had to go and fucking ruin it didn't you? Take everything he had and fucking splat it across a pavement purposely in front of him!”

 

John tries not to flinch as his mind brings forth memories to illustrate her words. Harry notices but her apology is only a slight pause and softening of the eyes.

 

“-I”

 

“No don't you fucking _dare_ even tell me that it had to be done, or it was for his own good or it's too big for me to understand because you can give me all that shit and even if it's true it doesn't stop the fact that it was cruel and it was torture and it bloody killed him. _Don't_ you think, for one _second_ , that he's over it because he's not. I've seen him down but I've never seen him like he was back then and I never ever want to see him like that again.” She stalks closer now, her smaller height not undoing her. She was holding up her own, high above him in that his focus was steady and his mouth shut. “I've let him down before, I always let him down and so do the rest of our rubbish family but _we_ never made him as happy as you did. Pull _anything_ similar to that shit again and I swear to god, I will hunt you down and make your life a living _hell_. And if you go and die for real I _swear_ I will dig you up and fucking bury you all over again just to teach you a double lesson.”

 

There is a slight pause where they each narrow their eyes at one another before Harriet's gaze flicks to John and back.

 

“Life _means_ something to some people, Sherlock. I'm giving you a second chance, I won't give you any more after this.”

 

“Understood.” Sherlock says, voice deep after a thoughtful silence. The dense air seems to snap and cool as they break each others gaze and Harry steps away. She walks towards John quietly and lays down a bag at the side of his chair. John knows it contains a box full of sentimental things from before Sherlock's 'death'. Photos, awards, trinkets, odd meaningful things he'd collected through life and in his depression had locked away. Harry hated Sherlock for hurting him but she wasn't going to let him ruin memories, fearful he'd destroy the boxes contents, she took it from him and hid it. Her giving it back was a sign she was letting him live his own life again, backing down after one last fight and accepting his decisions to stick with the bastard who'd ruined him. He nods a small thanks, mutters it into the back of his hand where his chin and lips rest. She kisses his head and turns to leave.

 

Sherlock stalks her out, a need to have the last word, John suspects, but is pleasantly surprised when he says nothing. He simply follows her all the way to the door and stops, it is Harry who talks first.

 

“Don't hurt him again.” She says simply, her parting words.

 

“Likewise.” Sherlock replies and her eyes twitch in challenge and understanding, they shake on it and John feels once again like he's not part of the room.

 

She leaves and Sherlock meets John's eyes for a moment, the air quite thick, it tended to happen when more than one Watson was in a room together. Two Watson's and a Holmes would be unbearable.

 

“Does every woman you meet slap you across the face?” John asks and the air clears a little with Sherlock's deep chuckle.

 

“Most of them.” He drawls, eyes flick to the box in the bag at Johns feet and his hands come to rub at his jaw where Harriet had slapped him.

 

“Sentiment?” John says before he can stop himself. He feels he's stopped himself saying a lot of things in the past, always thinking he'd have more time to say them later on. He's trying not to make that mistake again.

 

“Sentiment?” Sherlock asks, though there is the sideways look that tells John he knows what they're talking about.

 

“'Likewise'. 'Understood.'” John quotes, a pause between each word.

 

Sherlock just watches him, lip corners twitching momentarily before he rolls his eyes and glides from the room back in full arrogant swing.

 

“Tea?” The detective asks when he reaches the kitchen and John laughs. Since Sherlock's return he'd developed the habit of asking John if he wanted tea. Six times out of ten he actually followed through in making him a cup. The other times, it was used as a decoy for Sherlock to get out of situations. One of the human habits he hilariously tried to replicate, badly, as a means of avoiding awkward situations. Tea was one of the small things that John appreciates from Sherlock and makes a habit of telling him it's appreciated, even if the thanks were returned with a tut or roll of the eyes and a pointed stroll from the room. John wonders if he'll really get tea this time. He doubts it.

 

When a mug is placed down in front of him an hour later as he's reading, he smiles, their eyes meet and this time John  _is_ in the room for the unspoken conversation. 

 

As he watches Sherlock leave to continue an experiment at the kitchen table, his thoughts turn to the box Harry had left at the foot of his chair. He can remember the cool black tin against his fingers, the sound of the contents inside, shaking in his trembling hands. It's presence had been so threatening then - his whole heart in a tin box.

 

Now it seems quite harmless, sat at his feet, and he wonders if he'll one day soon be able to unlock the tin box once again.

 

He sips his tea and it seems quite possible.


End file.
